At Cisco Partner Summit 2016, CEO Chuck Robbins said the days of vertically integrated models from single vendors are over. Instead, he pointed to a new age that’s “powered by partnerships.” But that’s not all. CFO Kelly Kramer described Cisco’s shift to recurring revenue and software subscription services, and the company announced its HyperFlex hypercongerged platform.

Keynote Recap

Breaking News: Cisco is buying CliQr Technologies for $260 million. The startup’s CloudCenter platform helps IT service providers and customers to more effectively deploy and manage applications across public, private and hybrid cloud environments.

And finally, Cisco is evolving its value exchange… “We will evolve how we exchange value with you.” This will involve an evolution of incentives. ChannelE2E: I’m intrigued to know if this “value exchange” involves a shift on channel partner margins. I’ll be sure to ask later today during meetings.

News: Cisco is launching Partner Engage — a digital suite including analytics and campaign reporting for all partners.

News: Software partner roles launching May 1 include Lifecycle Advisor (to help customers focus on adopt, expand and renew) and software integrator (for Spark for Developers). The latter will help partners with DevOps.

Robbins waxed poetic about Bahr’s ability to represent partner interests within Cisco’s halls. “She’s the right channel leader at the right time.”

“The absolutely best thing about being CEO at Cisco is I get to present on Tuesday morning, and enjoy the parties the next two nights.”

“The winners in the next decade will be powered by partnerships. It’s moving too fast; the days of completely vertically integrated models are behind us.”

Robbins recapped the turbulent first few days of 2016, as financial markets gyrated. And the overall industry “has never moved so fast,” he asserted. “We’re on the front-end of this massive digital transformation.”

The key data point: We’ll move from 18 billion connected devices to 50 billion in the next few years. “When things are a little tough, that’s when we separate ourselves from the competition.”

Among customers visiting Cisco’s experience centers, the typical customer brings 13 employees — and 70 percent of those attendees have been from outside of the IT organization.

In the past two months, Robbins has met with 17 heads of state — to help countries worldwide tap into the digital revolution.

The data shift: Data will no longer be pulled into a data center. “This discussion is over. It will be data centers, and remote centers of data. Don’t bring the data to computing assets, bring the compute out to the data. The data is going to be more important than ever.”

Security, by extension, must be everywhere. He pointed to the SourceFire and OpenDNS acquisitions as modern ways to “solve for security” the minute the packet hits the wire.

When Cisco thinks about innovation, the company focuses on build vs buy, partner, invest or co-develop. Cisco has acquired 192 companies in its history. The company has $2.1 billion invested worldwide in 100 startups and 40 funds worldwide. And those investments connect back to Cisco’s strategic framework, he said.

Robbins says Cisco is now working with web-scale companies to gain real-time feedback on code development. He didn’t mention competitive threats from Facebook’s open source networking push.

He took a moment to recognize Pankaj Patel, EVP and chief development officer, as a selfless leader who has quietly delivered innovation to partners for nearly two decades.

Robbins highlighted partners across industrial verticals, transportation, buildings and workplaces and more. He was basically doubling down on the Internet of Things outside of traditional compute devices.

He managed the channel partners taking on ISV traits. “Many of you are acquiring or building application development capabilities.”

“More than anything else our future is powered by trust” between Cisco and partners.

“We are very deliberately shifting our business to software, subscription services and recurring revenue.” Roughly 28 percent of Cisco’s revenues are now recurring. OpenDNS and Jasper, she noted, are key to those efforts.

She pointed to “high value” recurring revenue growth with predictability and stability. “We are separating ourselves from old tech” and making wise decisions that also deliver partner profitability, she said.